Free Republic

He’s politically dumb and his campaign is run by amateurs. He doesn’t have a message and doesn’t know how to deliver a message. He’s a political letdown running on autopilot who needs to grab the controls. He’s a man whom only friends, relatives and fellow Mormons will ever love. And his name is Mitt Romney, Republican candidate for President of the United States. These are stinging jabs. All were made in the past week and all share one surprising thing in common: they were delivered not from the Obama campaign’s Chicago attack machine, as you might expect, but in a...

Kevin Madden, a Republican communications expert with long ties to Mitt Romney, will become a more frequent and visible spokesman for the presidential campaign, a source close to the decision said on Friday. The increased responsibilities for Mr. Madden came in the wake of criticism from nervous Republicans about Mr. Romney’s campaign team. The Wall Street Journal said in an editorial that the campaign “looks confused in addition to being politically dumb.”

Mitch McConnell is in the headlines again for saying the odds are against those wanting repeal of Obamacare. “[I]t’s a lot harder to undo something than it is to stop it in the first place,” he said in part. For once, let’s give McConnell the benefit of the doubt and suggest he is talking about the present Congress, not the next Congress, though in actual context he seems to mean both. Let’s be charitable. The truth is, I don’t expect Republicans in Congress to be fully committed to repeal next year even if they have Mitt Romney in the White...

Pundit says: Romney will fail if he doesn't change course.

Now that Mitt Romney has secured the GOP nomination, he is obviously free to be himself. His masquerade as a conservative is over as he has returned to many of the moderate to liberal stances he held as Governor of the People’s Republic of Massachusetts. He has also returned to being the polite politician who treats his Democratic opponents with respect. Mitt Romney only gets nasty against other Republicans. In the GOP primary, the Governor eviscerated his opponents with high priced, non-stop, hard hitting attacks. He is not employing the same tactics in his general election showdown against President Obama,...

Remember when Romney turned away Stimulus funds because they were wasteful and infringed on the Tenth Amendment? Remember when Romney led the fight against Obamacare with his bold op-eds, inviting scorn and being called a liar for daring to mention the unavoidable rationing of services ("Death Panels") ? Remember when Romney led the GOP to an astonishing victory in the 2010 mid-terms? Remember when Romney inspired thousands across the nation to sleep outside book stores in hopes of meeting him? Remember when Romney Flew to Arizona to stand by the embattled Governor Brewer as she was targeted by the Administration...

Now that Mitt Romney has officially clinched the Republican nomination, most of the political Right has rallied around him, out of antipathy for President Obama if for no other reason. Recent polls show that if the election were held today Romney would receive 90 percent of the Republican vote, and three-quarters of the vote from self-described conservatives. One can expect even more conservatives and Republicans to “come home,” as the bitterness of the primary season fades, and the contrast with Obama becomes clearer. Yet, for anyone concerned with the size, cost, and intrusiveness of government, dark clouds continue to hang...

Mark Levin is now insisting that Romney reveal his plans on how he wants to replace Obamacare and fix the other entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, etc. He understand that there may be strategic reasons for keeping it quiet, but considering the fact that Romney is making some very liberal appointments to his team including his transition team appointment Mike Leavitt, a guy who has been pushing for health care exchanges in the states, Levin feels its high time for Romney to explain to the American people what we should expect from a Romney presidency in terms of repealing/replacing...

On Tuesday, Gallup's seven-day tracking poll had Barack Obama and Mitt Romney tied at 46%. With the incumbent stuck below 50% on the ballot and Mr. Romney's favorability rising, the Republican challenger has a good shot at winning. To take the White House, Mr. Romney needs 270 votes in the Electoral College. A "3-2-1" strategy will get him there. Mr. Obama long ago lost his chance to duplicate his 2008 performance. A record of failure will do that. He's now forced to fight for states he easily won in 2008. The odds now narrowly favor a Romney win.

Each are Reaganest, in how they speak.

PHILADELPHIA -- Mitt Romney's aides soft-pedaled his latest tax pronouncements on Monday, insisting he wasn't tipping his hand when he told donors privately that he might seek to end the tax break for mortgages on second homes and curb other deductions for the wealthy as part of tax reform. "He was just discussing ideas that came up on the campaign trail," said former Sen. Jim Talent of Missouri, a frequent campaign surrogate. The remarks, made at a closed-door fundraiser in Florida and overheard by reporters, did not mark any "change in policy," Talent said on a conference call with reporters....

Now we will put to the test what was always an odd claim, namely that Mitt Romney is well positioned and well equipped to defeat Barack Obama this fall. This is a man who lost by 17 points to an incredibly weakened Ted Kennedy (people forget how vulnerable Kennedy was that year) in one of the most pro-Republican years in history, 1994 (the same year in which Rick Santorum won yet another upset victory); a man who would have been handily defeated if he had run for re-election as governor of Massachusetts in 2006; and a man who could barely...

A new poll shows Mitt Romney, who is locked in a prolonged GOP nomination fight, with lagging approval ratings, raising questions about his strength in a likely November match-up with President Obama. Half of those surveyed hold unfavorable views of the GOP front-runner, a new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday finds. In the poll, 50 percent of all surveyed and 52 percent of registered voters held unfavorable opinions of Romney. Thirty-four percent hold positive views on Romney, the lowest for any leading presidential contender in Post/ABC polls dating back to 1984. The poll also finds that Romney’s unfavorability tops...

Left-wing pundits and politicos continue to insist that Mitt Romney has yet to express what he wants to accomplish as President. Somehow they seem to ignore his call for a 20% across the board tax cut, repeal of ObamaCare, and enactment of a comprehensive energy plan. Maybe they didn’t notice his plans to balance the budget and strengthen the military, and thus gain greater respect and trust around the world. But for some reason, President Obama hasn’t been pressed at all to state what he wants to accomplish if he were given four more years in the White House. Through...

The Big story this weekend is that “a congressional committee is investigating how $1.6 billion in customer funds went missing from bankrupt brokerage MF Global said Friday that it’s found evidence that then-CEO Jon Corzine directed a senior executive to use $200 million of clients’ money.” It’s such a shame to see the former Governor getting probed like this. I thought Dems were not subject to financial and accounting laws because they created the laws for us. All Corzine needs to do is go before the judge and jury, then tell them they are stupid and he knows better. He...

Governor Romney’s campaign is catching some flak because a top aide implied that many of the candidate’s positions have been insincere and that Romney will erase those views (like an Etch-a-Sketch) and return to his statist roots as the general election begins. I’m surprised that anyone’s surprised. Hasn’t anybody been paying attention to his comments and track record on issues such as the value-added tax, healthcare, Social Security reform, budget savings, ethanol subsidies, Keynesian economics, and the minimum wage? In any event, people should be more agitated by his recent defense of the corrupt TARP bailouts. [...] This is going...

Mitt Romney won the presidential straw poll Saturday at the Conservative Political Action Conference, an unofficial endorsement from party activists that nevertheless helps the former Massachusetts governor burnish his conservative image. The Republican presidential candidate won with 38 percent of the vote at the Washington conference, the leading annual meet-up of American conservatives. The victory breaks a two-year winning streak by Ron Paul.

Apparently, unlike most everything else, Mitt Romney has not flip-flopped on his position on jihad and Islam. Back in July 2009, I wrote in a post entitled, "Why Romney Won't be President" that Romney would not be president because he said something so fundamentally and unabashedly wrong about America's greatest mortal threat that he was unfit to be President: "Jihadism Is not part of Islam." Yes, he said that. That is frightening coming from a Presidential candidate. Instead of spending the ensuing years studying jihad, Romney appears hardwired for delusion in his latest remarks. The fact that Romney knows peaceful...

Brigham Youg University has the largest library of books on Muslims scholars. It has been in the forefront of taking old books and translating them into English and publishing them. The Morman are call themselves the Church of Christ and Latter Day Saints–believing that there are prophets after Jesus Christ. The Mormons are Unitarians and reject Trinity. The LDS position on Islam can be found in an August 2000 article by James Toronto, entitled “A Latter-day Saint Perspective on Muhammad,” from Ensign—the church’s flagship monthly magazine. In the clearest and most complete elucidation of its position on Muslims, Toronto, the...

By a more than two to one margin, Americans say that the more they learn about Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney, the more they dislike him, per a new Washington Post / ABC poll: Overall, 55 percent of those who are closely following the campaign say they disapprove of what the GOP candidates have been saying. By better than 2 to 1, Americans say the more they learn about Romney, the less they like him. Even among Republicans, as many offer negative as positive assessments of him on this question. Judgments about former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who denounced Romney...